People have been taking to social media with startling footage of what looks suspiciously like a UFO over various spots in Cornwall.

Over the last couple of days the strange, shimmering black object has been spotted over Truro city centre, Carluddon clay tip, Fistral beach in Newquay, over the A30, above Roche Rock and by a surfer above the sea off the Cornish coast.

The first to spot it was surfer Kiefer Krishnan, who caught it on his Go-Pro camera, which he posted on his Instagram account on Monday.

Photographer Shayne House spotted the weird object, which appears to disappear and rematerialise, over the A30, also on Monday. He filmed it for A30 and even managed a close-up. He declared on Twitter: "What the?! Is this an alien spacecraft over the A30?"

Harry Wild, who works in food marketing, was the next to upload footage of the unexplained object. She saw it over Fistral beach on Monday and asked on Twitter is anyone else had seen it. Many people commented it looked like a swarm of birds or insects.

There were three more sightings on Tuesday. The first was by Trudi, from Kent, who posted footage over Roche Rock, near St Austell, on Instagram. She wrote: "What on Earth is this in the sky? It looks like some kind of craft to me, has anyone else seen this?

Cornwall Live has approached various agencies about these sightings but no one has any answers. We then realised that the Eden Project launches its new Journey Into Space attraction on Thursday, July 27, and wondered if these supposed UFOs had anything to do with that.

We contacted a spokesman for Eden, who replied: "It's true we have a galaxy of ways to tell the story of space at Eden this summer. To coin a phrase … 'The truth is out there'."